Building the web: the Internet and the property profession

The report examines the development of the Internet and Intranets in the world of business and commerce, drawing on previous literature and research. The new technology is explained, and key issues examined, such as the impact of the Internet on the surveyor's role as 'information broker' and its likely effect on clients' property requirements. The research is based on an analysis of 261 postal questionnaire responses and eight case study interviews from a sample of general practice and quantity surveying practices and corporates. For the first time the property profession is examined in detail and the key drivers, barriers and benefits of Internet use are identified for a range of different sized organisations.

State-of-the-art for entity-centric repository and authoring environment for multimedia

Many projects, e.g. VIKEF [13] and KIM [7], present grounded approaches for the use of entities as a means of indexing and retrieval of multimedia resources from heterogeneous sources. In this paper, we discuss the state-of-the-art of entity-centric approaches for multimedia indexing and retrieval. A summary of projects employing entity-centric repositories are portrayed. This paper also looks at the current state-of-the-art authoring environment, Macromedia Authorware, and the possibility of potential extension of this environment for entity-based multimedia authoring.

Linking human and machine brains

A look is taken here at how the use of implant technology is rapidly diminishing the effects of certain neural illnesses and distinctly increasing the range of abilities of those affected. An indication is given of a number of problem areas in which such technology has already had a profound effect, a key element being the need for a clear interface linking the human brain directly with a computer. In order to assess the possible opportunities, both human and animal studies are reported on. The main thrust of the paper is however a discussion of neural implant experimentation linking the human nervous system bi-directionally with the internet. With this in place neural signals were transmitted to various technological devices to directly control them, in some cases via the internet, and feedback to the brain was obtained from such as the fingertips of a robot hand, ultrasonic (extra) sensory input and neural signals directly from another human's nervous system. Consideration is given to the prospects for neural implant technology in the future, both in the short term as a therapeutic device and in the long term as a form of enhancement, including the realistic potential for thought communication potentially opening up commercial opportunities. Clearly though, an individual whose brain is part human - part machine can have abilities that far surpass those with a human brain alone. Will such an individual exhibit different moral and ethical values to those of a human.? If so, what effects might this have on society?

On linking human and machine brains

A look is taken here at how the use of implant technology is rapidly diminishing the effects of certain neural illnesses and distinctly increasing the range of abilities of those affected. An indication is given of a number of problem areas in which such technology has already had a profound effect, a key element being the need for a clear interface linking the human brain directly with a computer. In order to assess the possible opportunities, both human and animal studies are reported on. The main thrust of the paper is, however, a discussion of neural implant experimentation linking the human nervous system bi-directionally with the internet. With this in place, neural signals were transmitted to various technological devices to directly control them, in some cases via the internet, and feedback to the brain was obtained from, for example, the fingertips of a robot hand, and ultrasonic (extra) sensory input and neural signals directly from another human's nervous system. Consideration is given to the prospects for neural implant technology in the future, both in the short term as a therapeutic device and in the long term as a form of enhancement, including the realistic potential for thought communication-potentially opening up commercial opportunities. Clearly though, an individual whose brain is part human-part machine can have abilities that far surpass those with a human brain alone. Will such an individual exhibit different moral and ethical values from those of a human? If so, what effects might this have on society? (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Branding in the post-internet era

The internet and its related e-technologies have to a large extent upset the asymmetry of information that for so many years worked in favour of brand managers. Consumers are now empowered to interact with brands and other consumers but also to create their own content on user generated content sites leading to a more participative approach to branding. Internet brands adopt a more relaxed stance on brand management, which involves the consumer in fundamental stages of the brand building process. In this context, the brand manager is no longer a `guardian' of the brand but becomes more of a brand `host'. The question is to what extent can traditional companies follow suit? Are they comfortable to cede control to consumers? Do we need a new theory of branding in an e-space?

Trust in authorities monitoring the distribution of genetically modified foods: dimensionality, measurement issues, and determinants

Based on a combined internet and mail survey in Germany the independence of indica-tors of trust in public authorities from indicators of attitudes toward genetically modified food is tested. Despite evidence of a link between trust indicators on the one hand and evaluation of benefits and perceived likelihoods of risks, correlation with other factors is found to be moderate on average. But the trust indicators exhibit only a moderate relation with the re-spondents’ preference for either sole public control or a cooperation of public and private bodies in the monitoring of GM food distribution. Instead, age and location in either the New or the Old Lander are found to be significantly related with such preferences.

Electronic commerce in agriculture and agribusiness: the case of Emilia-Romagna (Italy )

Despite the expectations of the benefits of this tool, the adoption of Electronic Commerce (EC) by small and medium firms of the agro-food sector in Italy is still not frequent, however, the understanding of opportunities it could create and how they can be exploited remains a relevant issue. This study, carried out in the Emilia -Romagna region during 2002, illustrates the results of a survey of 208 firms at all stages of the agro-food chain aimed at understanding the use of the Internet and the strategies adopted for EC implementation. The results show a low level of implementation of the instrument and a limited variety of adoption strategies. Agro-food firms actually invest very little in EC focusing their efforts on the Internet as promotion tool, while web-based direct selling is confined to market niches. The view that the Internet would reverse the disadvantages of small firms appears by now non realistic, even if interesting opportunities for further development are still present.

Crocodiles in the regulatory swamp: navigating the dangers of outsourcing, SaaS and shadow IT

Corporates are entering the brave new world of the internet and digitization without much regard for the fine print of a growing regulation regime. More traditional outsourcing arrangements are already falling foul of the regulators as rules and supervision intensifies. Furthermore, ‘shadow IT’ is proliferating as the attractions of SaaS, mobile, cloud services, social media, and endless new ‘apps’ drive usage outside corporate IT. Initial cost-benefit analyses of the Cloud make such arrangements look immediately attractive but losing control of architecture, security, applications and deployment can have far reaching and damaging regulatory consequences. From research in financial services, this paper details the increasing body of regulations, their inherent risks for businesses and how the dangers can be pre-empted and managed. We then delineate a model for managing these risks specifically focused on investigating, strategizing and governing outsourcing arrangements and related regulatory obligations

Effective e-learning integration with traditional learning in a blended learning environment

E-Learning is an emerging tool that uses advanced technology to provide training and development in higher education and within industry. Its rapid growth has been facilitated by the Internet and the massive opportunities in global education. The aim of this study is to consider how effective and efficient e-learning is when integrated with traditional learning in a blended learning environment. The study will provide a comparison between purist ELearning and Blended learning environment. The paper will also provide directions for the blended learning environment which can be used by all the three main stakeholder student, tutors and institution to make strategic decision about the learning and teaching initiatives. The paper concludes that blended learning approaches offer the most flexible and scalable route to E-Learning.

Parallel Monte Carlo algorithms for information retrieval

In any data mining applications, automated text and text and image retrieval of information is needed. This becomes essential with the growth of the Internet and digital libraries. Our approach is based on the latent semantic indexing (LSI) and the corresponding term-by-document matrix suggested by Berry and his co-authors. Instead of using deterministic methods to find the required number of first "k" singular triplets, we propose a stochastic approach. First, we use Monte Carlo method to sample and to build much smaller size term-by-document matrix (e.g. we build k x k matrix) from where we then find the first "k" triplets using standard deterministic methods. Second, we investigate how we can reduce the problem to finding the "k"-largest eigenvalues using parallel Monte Carlo methods. We apply these methods to the initial matrix and also to the reduced one. The algorithms are running on a cluster of workstations under MPI and results of the experiments arising in textual retrieval of Web documents as well as comparison of the stochastic methods proposed are presented. (C) 2003 IMACS. Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Developing collaborative social software

The Internet has an increasing role in facilitating communication between people and groups of people. As access to the Internet and World Wide Web is widely available, collaborative services enabled over the Internet are also burgeoning. In this paper, we present the current issues and our techniques for developing collaborative social software. We discuss online communities in the context of social collaborative systems. We then describe our approach to the development of supporting software for online communities and collaboration.

Upgrading humans via implants - why not?

In his forum paper, Prof. Kevin Warwick considers four different examples of how the use of implant technology is opening up the possibility of upgrading human abilities, particularly in terms of mental cognition. The main thrust is an overview of Prof. Warwick's own research, which led to him receiving a neural implant linking his nervous system bi-directionally with the internet. With this implant in place, neural signals were transmitted to various technological devices to directly control them, in some cases via the internet, and feedback to the brain was obtained from such stimuli as the fingertips of a robot hand, ultrasonic (extra-) sensory input and neural signals directly from another human's nervous system. A view is taken as to the prospects for the future, both in the short-term as a therapeutic device and in the long-term as a form of enhancement, including the realistic potential, in the near future, for thought communication – thereby opening up tremendous commercial potential. The therapy/enhancement dichotomy is considered here, as well as military and medical issues. Clearly though, an individual whose brain is part human/part machine can have abilities that far surpass those who remain with a human brain alone. Will such an individual exhibit different moral and ethical values to those of a human? If so, what effects might this have on society?